Three weeks after the most divisive election of our time, people are still reeling. Millions are calling for recounts. Jill Stein is fundraising for a vote audit. People are questioning the system that allowed the person with 2 million fewer votes to become the president.

So, how did we get here? How were the polls so disastrously wrong? I think the answer is public opinion and Donald Trump’s knowledge of it as a reality star.

Public opinion is the knowledge the public has about an issue or candidate and how we feel about it. This election was unusual in that rather than public opinion favoring the most favorable candidate, it seemed to favor the least objectionable. Donald Trump won the presidency by focusing on the opinion of an overlooked faction of society: the white working class, especially from rural areas. These people have not had incredible voter turnout historically, but Trump spoke to them. He made them feel heard. More importantly, he used them to sway public opinion his way. While he and his supporters knew that he was not exactly America’s golden boy, Trump managed to divert attention to Hillary Clinton’s scandals. In an election where electoral votes mattered more than the popular vote, Donald Trump swayed the popular opinion in specific states with a high population of white working class citizens such as Ohio.

Another contributing factor was the poor public opinion of both candidates that led many to vote third party. These third party votes came largely from libertarians who tend to swing both ways, and progressives who are far left liberals. Added together, these votes consisted of more typical democratic voters than republican voters, so more votes were drawn from Clinton than Trump. This lead Trump to win swing states such as Florida which remained too close to call until hours after polls closed. Eventually, it was called for Trump. Florida was really the turning point in the election. After the election, many experts pointed to Florida as the game changer. Public opinion swaying Americans to vote third party may have been the defining force in the election. The public opinion was that both candidates were equally bad, and so many voters turned to an outside force that they felt would send a message.

Public opinion was probably the driving force in Trump’s victory. The outsider knew how to influence the public, and because of that he spoke to people who had previously been overlooked. This use of negative public opinion led to Trump victory.

Now, why were the polls wrong? Where did the comfortable lead Clinton enjoyed disappear to? The answer has multiple facets. First, Trump began calls of rigged polls months ago. His supporters were therefore less likely to answer questions from pollsters, which may have skewed the early polls.

According to Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, many surveys under-sampled non-college educated white voters because of historically low voter turnout. As Trump appealed to this group, the polls skewed toward the democrats. He also believes that many thought that the country’s rising diversity would put Clinton over the top based on poor perception of Trump. Some believe the polls were skewed by hidden voters. These voters would vote for Trump but were too embarrassed to admit it because of fear of backlash or a discomfort with Trump’s scandals.

While some could argue that the pre-election polls were more correct than they seemed because Clinton won the popular vote, the reality is that Trump did win the election. While democrats wait for the recount and republicans pray that the results stand, one thing is clear: it will be a long time before Americans believe polls again.